On The Town: 10 things to do in Chicago this weekend

You long for the days of an open mic night at the Cotton Club where B. Cole would perform his poetic comedy; a weekend at All Jokes Aside with George Willborn hosting and George Wallace headlining; or Steve Harvey and Eddie Griffin bringing the laughs at Heroes. Those days are long gone for Chicago, but the All Stars of Comedy show may warm the comedic heartstrings for an evening with Tony Rock, Sheryl Underwood, Bill Bellamy, Willborn and Don "D.C." Curry performing. Why go: Jokes and Notes does a great job of getting top talent on its weekly schedule of laughter, but there's nothing like hearing from veterans to make you bust a gut. Reconsider: If you are not familiar with black families driving "Down South," "da hood" or arguing with black girls. 8 p.m. Saturday at Arie Crown Theater, McCormick Place, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive; $39.50-$69.50; 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com

You long for the days of an open mic night at the Cotton Club where B. Cole would perform his poetic comedy; a weekend at All Jokes Aside with George Willborn hosting and George Wallace headlining; or Steve Harvey and Eddie Griffin bringing the laughs at Heroes. Those days are long gone for Chicago, but the All Stars of Comedy show may warm the comedic heartstrings for an evening with Tony Rock, Sheryl Underwood, Bill Bellamy, Willborn and Don "D.C." Curry performing. Why go: Jokes and Notes does a great job of getting top talent on its weekly schedule of laughter, but there's nothing like hearing from veterans to make you bust a gut. Reconsider: If you are not familiar with black families driving "Down South," "da hood" or arguing with black girls. 8 p.m. Saturday at Arie Crown Theater, McCormick Place, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive; $39.50-$69.50; 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com

The angriest man in rock 'n' roll history is on the phone, talking about his love for nature. "I don't know what makes an insect tick, or want to bother, but I'm absolutely thrilled at its endurance!" says John Lydon, frontman for the experimental British band Public Image Ltd and also known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. "I love anything that lives. Heaven is on this earth. There are no angels on the clouds with twanging harps. ... That's just another man's fantasy. I make war with no human being and no creature." Lydon, who spent the last decade hosting the Discovery Channel's "John Lydon's Megabugs" and British TV shows "John Lydon's Shark Attack" and "John Lydon Goes Ape," goes on like this for a while. Finally he is told he kind of sounds like a hippie. "I've always despised the hippies," says the man who infamously scrawled "I HATE" above his Pink Floyd T-shirt in the '70s. "They messed about with philosophies they didn't quite understand. (They) were really, frankly, a very selfish movement -- one that played on women's insecurities. Free love's all well and fine, but you're not the one that gets pregnant, fella. You know what I mean. I'm a realist." 8 p.m. Sunday at House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn St.; $37.50; 312-923-2000 or houseofblues.com Read the full John Lydon inteview

The angriest man in rock 'n' roll history is on the phone, talking about his love for nature. "I don't know what makes an insect tick, or want to bother, but I'm absolutely thrilled at its endurance!" says John Lydon, frontman for the experimental British band Public Image Ltd and also known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. "I love anything that lives. Heaven is on this earth. There are no angels on the clouds with twanging harps. ... That's just another man's fantasy. I make war with no human being and no creature." Lydon, who spent the last decade hosting the Discovery Channel's "John Lydon's Megabugs" and British TV shows "John Lydon's Shark Attack" and "John Lydon Goes Ape," goes on like this for a while. Finally he is told he kind of sounds like a hippie. "I've always despised the hippies," says the man who infamously scrawled "I HATE" above his Pink Floyd T-shirt in the '70s. "They messed about with philosophies they didn't quite understand. (They) were really, frankly, a very selfish movement -- one that played on women's insecurities. Free love's all well and fine, but you're not the one that gets pregnant, fella. You know what I mean. I'm a realist." 8 p.m. Sunday at House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn St.; $37.50; 312-923-2000 or houseofblues.com Read the full John Lydon inteview